I’m a teacher, who raised the level of Russian education. And I enjoy it

When I first started teaching online way back in 2014, I had no idea how to make my classes interesting, so students would never drop my classes. School and online education are completely different things, I can’t just force people to study Russian and call their parents if they don’t… Almost by accident I found method what’s become the best thing I’ve ever done. It helped many students to study Russian and remember it almost forever.  It’s literally transformed the way you’re thinking and nobody’s going to teach this at school. And it’s also helped me keep 90% of students motivated

Here’s how it happened..

 

When I started, I had 2 students from Taiwan and America

My mother with 25 years of experience in teaching told me: “never go to university if you want to teach people, just read these books and ask me anything”. Russian education is pretty terrible (still), so I took her advice and spent much time the books before the beginning my own teaching path..

I was living on Taiwan where I accidentally found my first online students from Taiwan and America. I’m grateful to these patient souls..

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I’ll never forget how nervous I was the very first time I started teaching online

I was scared and excited at the same time. But I always was good in explanation (make it simple) so students loved me. 

But the problem was – not all of them.. because some students dropped the classes.

I knew I needed to change something, but kept teaching the same program, because it was ready and I didn’t know how to make it better

Until the day I met a student from England.

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And that’s when I knew I was onto something..

How just 1 person can change all your life.. My new student from London – Lux. He was just a regular student, but he told me one thing in a lesson:

– “I definitely need to add this word to my flashcards..”

– “what flashcards??”

I realized that after every lesson he was making flashcards for every Russian rule and word.. I was so thrilled, so I started to make flashcards for him and for all my students afterwards.  Results were incredible..

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The biggest challenge with “lazy” students

Let’s be honest – It’s almost useless to teach lazy students, because they don’t use their knowledge and forget all the material in 2-3 months

But what was a surprise for me when I met strong students, who had successfully graduated from Russian university and still had basic mistakes

“something’s wrong”– I never got away from the idea. How can I simplify Russian for my students? 

We needed to change the perception completely..

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There are no “lazy” students

5 years of teaching and I’ve realized – laziness is a lack of motivation. Mostly it means – student is not motivated to learn subject with YOUR method

Remember your math teacher? I believe she was really strict, maybe even rude person (my teacher was). Did she have bachelor degree? Yes. Was she an experienced teacher? Yes! But why mostly everyone hated the math teacher?

Because 99% of such teacher just push.. they don’t know how to make classes interesting, how to help students with difficult topics and rules

Thanks to all my lazy students, who opened my eyes. I’d never found the power of long term memory..

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There are a lot of things that have changed in my life since that very first student

Now I show students how to enjoy learning. Don’t have much time? Fine. Don’t understand grammar? Okay 🙂

If you know right approach studying becomes triple faster and easier. You don’t need study for hours and still thrive in Russian!

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